posted at 8:01 pm on November 3, 2013 by Allahpundit

Technicians have shut down HealthCare.gov during weekends since the site launched Oct. 1 but just for a few overnight hours.

The site went offline this weekend from 9 p.m. Saturday until 9 a.m. Sunday.

“The HealthCare.gov tech team is performing extended maintenance this weekend to improve network infrastructure and make enhancements to the online application and enrollment tools,” agency spokeswoman Joanne Peters said Saturday.

***

In May 2010, two months after the Affordable Care Act squeaked through Congress, President Obama’s top economic aides were getting worried. Larry Summers, director of the White House’s National Economic Council, and Peter Orzag, head of the Office of Management and Budget, had just received a pointed four-page memo from a trusted outside health adviser. It warned that no one in the administration was “up to the task” of overseeing the construction of an insurance exchange and other intricacies of translating the 2,000-page statute into reality…

[O]n the balmy Sunday evening of March 21, 2010, hours after the bill had been enacted, the president had stood on the Truman Balcony for a champagne toast with his weary staff and put them on notice: They needed to get started on carrying out the law the very next morning. It was not ready even though, for months beginning last spring, the president emphasized the exchange’s central importance during regular staff meetings to monitor progress. No matter which aspects of the sprawling law had been that day’s focus, the official said, Obama invariably ended the meeting the same way: “All of that is well and good, but if the Web site doesn’t work, nothing else matters.”…

Inside CMS, meanwhile, some staffers were aware by late 2012 that the work of building the federal exchange was lagging, according to a former HHS official — a much earlier timeline than has been previously disclosed. Some employees in the main office involved with building the exchange repeatedly warned at meetings late last year and in January that so many things were behind schedule that there would be no time for adequate “end to end” testing of how the moving parts worked together, the former HHS official said.

In the 2010 memo, Cutler complained that the Department of Health and Human Services was “far behind the curve on the key long-term reform efforts.” Don Berwick, Obama’s choice to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, “has never run a provider organization or insurance company, or dealt with Medicare or Medicaid reimbursement. On basic issues…Don knows relatively little.” Senior staff at CMS has “no experience running a health care organization,” Cutler said.

Cutler also criticized the person tasked with setting up the insurance exchanges, because that person was ideologically hostile to the industry. “If you cannot find a way to work with hesitant states and insurers, reform will blow up. I have seen no indication that HHS even realizes this, let alone is acting on it.”

***

Hadley, a North Carolina father, buys his insurance on the individual market. His insurance company, Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina, directed him to HealthCare.gov in a cancellation letter he received in September.

After multiple attempts to access the problem-plagued website, Hadley finally made it past the registration page Thursday. That’s when he was greeted with downloadable letters about eligibility — for two people in South Carolina.

The letters, dated October 8, acknowledge receipt of an application to the Health Insurance Marketplace and the eligibility of family members to purchase health coverage. One of the letters was addressed to Thomas Dougall, a lawyer from Elgin, SC…

“I want my personal information off of that website,” Dougall said.

***

California senator Dianne Feinstein reveleated on Sunday that she told the White House, in the wake of the botched rollout of the health care exchanges, that the administration should pull down Healthcare.gov until it was functioning properly but that her advice was rejected. “They believe that they need to keep it running and that they can sort out the difficulties,” she said.

Feinstein also conceded that the president did not make clear that millions would lose their health plans as a result of the law. Though she indicated that she is murky on the details of the law, she told CBS’ Bob Schieffer that “I think that part of it, if true, was never made clear” and, with regard to an individual’s ability to keep the insurance he is, “It is really very unclear, right now, exactly what the situation is.”

***

Pfeiffer echoed press secretary Jay Carney’s statements that the White House expects the first month enrollment numbers will be low. ”I can promise that the first enrollment numbers, which will be released later this month, are not going to be what we wanted them to be,” Pfeiffer told This Week’s George Stephanopoulos on Sunday, but said the White House will be in a “good place” once that Healthcare.gov website is fixed.

CNN, ABC, MSNBC and others have filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) seeking information on the beleaguered healthcare.gov website. They have also asked for government documents revealing how many people have enrolled in the new healthcare exchanges.

Journalists have repeatedly pressed the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for the enrollment data, but the administration says it won’t do so until mid-November…

It’s unlikely that these FOIA requests will be granted any time soon.

***

As with “Neo”, Obama’s Matrix isn’t real. In fact, it’s the definition of un-reality: an imitation embraced in order to excuse absent leadership. For many years this pretense has been papered over by the GOP’s fetish for political self-immolation. Nevertheless, the GOP doesn’t alter the foundational truth — Obama’s Matrix is a dream world divorced from courage and facts…

In the political storm that the health care debacle has reaped, the president and his staff are realizing that at a basic level, the “buck” has objective form. Slowly, they’re recognizing that the shrine of plausible deniability eventually becomes implausible. Whether in business or government, leadership is about more than positive intentions — it’s about managing the consequences of choices. As the Merovingian explains to “Neo,” “I drank too much wine; now I must (use the restroom). Cause and effect.”

Blowback

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Why did they go ahead knowing it would fail and we’d lose our insurance? Easy; they wanted the system to break and they didn’t care how. Socialists, first and foremost, had to destroy the “too hard to compete with” capitalist system that was the envy of the world. Anyone who thinks they intended to fix things is missing the obvious. Everything they’ve done since gaining power has been designed to break the system in the same way they broke our culture to gain the power in the first place.

Bob: “Hey Jim, did you hear about the Obama administration scandal?,
Jim: “You mean the Mexican gun running?”
Bob: “No, the other one.”
Jim: “You mean SEAL Team 6?”
Bob: “No, the other one.”
Jim: “Obama saying the avg family would save $2,500 on their premiums?”
Bob: “No, the other one.”
Jim: “Forcing businesses to violate their religious beliefs by paying for drugs that abort the unborn?”
Bob: “No, the other one.”
Jim: “Violating the rights and sanctity of our Churches?”
Bob: “No, the other one.”
Jim: “Spending $634 million on a website that doesn’t work?”
Bob: “No, the other one.”
Jim: “Obama calling for an increase in our debt when he lambasted Bush for the very same thing?”
Bob: “No, the other one.”
Jim: “Obama having NSA spy on 124 Billion Phone Calls in One Month?”
Bob: “No, the other one.”
Jim: “Saddling our kids with $17 trillion in debt of which they can never get out of and will not have as good a life as we have?”
Bob: “No, the other one.”
Jim: “Bailing out Detroit after decades of corrupt Democratic management?”
Bob: “No, the other one.”
Jim: “You mean the State Dept. lying about Benghazi?”
Bob: “No, the other one.”
Jim: “You mean voter fraud?”
Bob: “No, the other one.”
Jim: “Intentionally trying to hurt Americans during the sequester?”
Bob: “No, the other one.”
Jim: “Blocking veterans who secured our freedoms from their monuments but giving the green light for Illegals to use Monument Mall?”
Bob: “No, the other one.”
Jim: “Denying school kids the ability to tour the White House but still spending lavishly on his parties?”
Bob: “No, the other one.”
Jim: “You mean Obama saying we can keep our insurance and doctors if we wanted to?”
Bob: “No, the other one.”
Jim: “You mean the military not getting their votes counted?”
Bob: “No, the other one.”
Jim: “The NSA monitoring foreign diplomats?”
Bob: “No, the other one.”
Jim: “You mean the use of drones in our own country without the benefit of the law?”
Bob: “No, the other one.”
Jim: “Giving 123 Technologies $300 Million and right after it declared bankruptcy and was sold to the Chinese?”
Bob: “No, the other one.”
Jim: “You mean the president arming the Muslim Brotherhood?”
Bob: “No the other one:.
Jim: “The IRS targeting conservatives?”
Bob: “No, the other one.”
Jim: “The DOJ spying on the press?”
Bob: “No, the other one.”
Jim: “Sebelius shaking down health insurance executives?”
Bob: “No, the other one.”
Jim: “You mean Obama spending $3.7 Trillion on Welfare Over Last 5 Years”
Bob: “No, the other one.”
Jim: “Giving SOLYNDRA $500 MILLION DOLLARS and 3 months later they declared bankruptcy and then the Chinese bought it?”
Bob: “No, the other one.”
Jim: “The NSA monitoring our phone calls, emails and everything else?”
Bob: “No, the other one.”
Jim: “Millions of Americans losing their health care coverage?”
Bob: “No, the other one.”
Jim: “Forcing Americans to include coverage in their insurance policies of items they do not want?”
Bob: “No, the other one.”
Jim: “Ordering the release of nearly 10,000 illegal immigrants from jails and prisons, and falsely blaming the sequester?”
Bob: “No, the other one.”
Jim: “Denying Arizona the right to protect its borders?”
Bob: “No, the other one.”
Jim: “Providing weapons to Syrian rebels many of whom apparently are Al Queda”
Bob: “No, the other one.”
Jim: “The president’s repeated violation of the law requiring him to submit a budget no later than the first Monday in February?”
Bob: “No, the other one.”
Jim: “The 2012 vote where 115% of all registered voters in some counties voted 100% for Obama?”
Bob: “No, the other one.”
Jim: “The president’s unconstitutional recess appointments in an attempt to circumvent the Senate’s advise-and-consent role?”
Bob: “No, the other one.”
Jim: “The State Department interfering with an Inspector General investigation on departmental sexual misconduct?”
Bob: “No, the other one.”
Jim: “Clinton, the IRS, Clapper and Holder all lying to Congress?”
Bob: “No, the other one.”
Jim: “The President using nearly $1 trillion dollars of stimulus money to fund his cronies?”
Bob: “No, the other one”
Jim: “You mean Fast & Furious?”
Bob: “No, the other one.”
Jim: “I give up! …Oh wait, I think I got it! You mean that 65 million low-information voters who don’t pay taxes and get free stuff from taxpayers and stuck us again with the most pandering, corrupt administration in American history?”
Bob: “THAT’S THE ONE!”

After multiple attempts to access the problem-plagued website, Hadley finally made it past the registration page Thursday. That’s when he was greeted with downloadable letters about eligibility — for two people in South Carolina.

When I was a cath lab director, we had our cath film archiving system upgraded by our sister hospital off site. Shortly thereafter, I looked at a cath film and it didn’t match the report. Somehow the upgrade changed the link between the identifying patient information and the images. Even on the images themselves-the wrong name appeared. They got it fixed, but I was never able to understand how it happened. Maybe the same people worked on the Obamacare website.

Killing people eliminates the problem of having to house them at Gitmo or appear in a federal court.

I made the mistake of stopping by HA on Saturday afternoon. Clearly the trolls come out in force on the weekend shift. If you didn’t think that Snowden was a martyred national hero then you were pig piled on beyond belief. I was actually called an Obama-loving, NSA spying-loving, leftist!

[O]n the balmy Sunday evening of March 21, 2010, hours after the bill had been enacted, the president had stood on the Truman Balcony for a champagne toast with his weary staff and put them on notice: They needed to get started on carrying out the law the very next morning. It was not ready even though, for months beginning last spring, the president emphasized the exchange’s central importance during regular staff meetings to monitor progress. No matter which aspects of the sprawling law had been that day’s focus, the official said, Obama invariably ended the meeting the same way: “All of that is well and good, but if the Web site doesn’t work, nothing else matters.”…

Thank God. I thought Obama was disengaged and didn’t know what was going on. Turns out he was still the smartest person in the room. It was all those other people working for him that screwed this up./

There’s going to be a lot of people without insurance on Jan 1st. How are the insurance companies going to handle being run out of business by the govt which is basically what is happening to them. No customers, no business. They bought the lie from the liar in chief just like the 52M lofo voters. They thought they would reap the benefits of having people forced to buy insurance from them through a middle man(govt)website. Now they’re left holding an empty bag. Not feeling sorry for them but will for those with illnesses and no recourse.

Hadley, a North Carolina father, buys his insurance on the individual market. His insurance company, Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina, directed him to HealthCare.gov in a cancellation letter he received in September.

After multiple attempts to access the problem-plagued website, Hadley finally made it past the registration page Thursday. That’s when he was greeted with downloadable letters about eligibility — for two people in South Carolina.

North Carolina or South Carolina? To paraphrase our former Secretary of State, what difference does it make?